British Columbia Lawyers Cautioned about Extortion Threats over the Internet

One late cyber-assault against a law firm in British Columbia of Canada has prompted suggestion to lawyers for becoming watchful of possible extortion threats. Vancouversun.com published this, January 1, 2015.

According to an e-mail from the Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) during 1st-week of 2015 to members of the Society, the attacked law company found a virus called Cryptowall on its PC-system which had infiltrated the machine and made it inoperable. The incident had occurred on the 29th of December, 2014.

Messages popped up on certain PC screens telling the user his documents had been encrypted as well as locked via the use of a key known as RSA2048. The user then read a suggestion asking him to communicate in an address on or before 12 hours followed with paying a 'ransom fee' for getting his document files unlocked.

There was as well a warning that failure to deposit the demanded amount by the time-period stated would double the fee and after thirty days all the documents would get irreversibly spoiled.

The LSBC explained how the law firm, turned into victim, had back-up maintained of its folders so taking technical help managed towards restarting work with all computers operating as usual. It reported the hacking assault and extortion threat to the cops who indicated how viewing a file attached in an e-mail to the firm possibly made the firm's computer vulnerable to the cyber crooks' malware.

The Society urged all its members for adopting measures towards safeguarding their PCs as also never clicking on dubious electronic mails and attachments.

According to specialists also, every Internaut requires understanding system weaknesses when online-crime continues to increase with targets as varied as prominent multinational organizations similar as JP Morgan Chase and Sony Pictures Entertainment to smaller-scale enterprises as also home computers.

Meanwhile, just like LSBC becoming target of cyber-criminals during recent period, government e-mail service of B.C. (Canada) too was hit with a PC-virus during December latter half 2014 that resulted in getting the service deactivated for sometime during when e-mail servers were disabled whilst work was started in collaboration with security agencies that, however, solved the problem.

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